Strategy + Web Analytics: How To Tie Data To Results

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Everyone talks about strategy, tactics and operations in business… but how many actually make them actionable?

This is a super common problem in Web Analytics, where technical knowledge is accessible but the actual business insights are hidden.

I want to give something practical and different from the usual fluff you read online.

This article is a masterclass, spend some time on it and think about the concepts.

Defining Strategy

There is no universal definition for strategy as it changed over the years and across different cultures but I like one.

Rumelt, a leading expert in strategy, provides a short and clear explanation of what strategy is.

According to him:

 A strategy is a design of action and policy that’s aimed at surmounting a high-stakes challenge.

In the case of Web, the high-stakes challenge is increasing profit while dealing with no-accurate data and information overload.

Action and policy refer to execution.

Speaking of strategy, operations and tactics, I stick to the original military concept like the one shown below:

P.S. Adam Gent also talked about strategy in relation to SEO. This article is about strategy in general, not related to one specific channel.

P.P.S. Grand strategy you can ignore for our business purposes.

Strategy In More Detail

According to Rumelt, there are 3 components to strategy and they form a kernel.

Diagnosis: what’s the current scenario? You find the key problems and challenges.

Guiding policy: how can we overcome the challenge(s)?

Coherent actions: as the name implies, execution as long as it’s consistent with your policies.

Keep this in mind because we will come back to it.

Data & Analytics strategy = the choices and priorities that create a course of action to achieve the high-level goals of an organization.

Simone Aspen-Taylor

We will take this into account when building our “custom” framework.

The Crux

Rumelt defines the Crux as the hardest problem or a set of gnarly challenges you may face.

So strategy is about prioritization and you need to make sacrifices. Some challenges aren’t as important or key as you think and can be postponed.

Some common examples that you see around:

  • Your competitors have much better content
  • Your value proposition is bad
  • What you sell can’t scale

So it’s not about web data but about your business because that’s all that matters.

This is also true in SEO, Social Media and any other channel you can think of.

Lesson: find challenges soon and acknowledge them.

Chaos

Known by different names like “uncertainty” or “variability”, the idea is the same, there is chaos in our world.

Unpredictability is at the heart of business and marketing and that’s why good strategists and entrepreneurs diversify their risk.

How often did you hear of people making super detailed plans that fail at the first obstacle?

There are different reasons:

  • they didn’t know what their crux was
  • they ignored chaos
  • they didn’t have enough discipline to follow through

We give form to chaos, it’s normal to have disorder in nature.

The most naive people think you can run a perfect plan… which is false.

The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one’s self to destiny.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Lesson: it’s fine to be paranoid during planning but when giving recommendations be bold and focus on making people execute.

The Current Status Of The Industry

The Marketing industry uses all of these terms incorrectly and strategy is a buzzword that means all and nothing in English.

“Internal linking strategy”

“SEO strategy”

“Social media strategy”

In most cases, people mean techniques or methods, like a mix of tactics with no clear coordination.

In Web Analytics, we read technical stuff all day without any preoccupation with the business side of things, which is what matters in the end.

Companies exist for profit, not for tracking events in Tag Manager.

Using data with an eye for strategy and action is what will make you different.

Why do I have to use BigQuery if I can’t use my data properly?

Most Examples Don’t Work

What I don’t like about many business books is that they show crazy examples, like Apple or Microsoft.

Dude, how many people actually work in those companies?

Reality is quite different from Silicon Valley.

In data, we see the same problem with influencers treating Fortune 500 companies like the normality of work.

I am a proponent of an easier way of looking at things that also apply to normal people like us.

Every single time I talk to in-house people from big companies, I am honestly disappointed lol

I recommend starting from the very bottom, big companies have different challenges and won’t teach you resilience.

A great and tangible example is provided by Digital Leverage when explaining progressive.com and its Underdog SEO in one of the most competitive industries.

Operations & Why They Matter

Bridging the gap between strategy and tactics, there are operations, which business books often put below tactics for some reason.

It’s the middle layer that makes or breaks it.

You can consider them as your systems or processes in place and how they interact with each other.

Like this one right here:

Your automation on Airtable sits at this level too.

An entire process you have documented is a form of operational work.

Processes/Systems heavily rely on data and Web Analytics is what you are interested in.

Content Planning? GA4 and GSC data.

Audience Research? Semrush/Ahrefs, GSC, GA4, Similarweb

People often confuse operations with tactics or skip them altogether.

A Quick Example

I often stress the importance of processes because that’s what makes a company successful.

Websites are also built on viable operations.

Everything in life is part of a system.

The most common operations I play with are:

  • Content Management workflows, e.g. Airtable + Zapier/Make
  • Monitoring changes, e.g. Looker Studio + BigQuery
  • Content Optimization, finding what can be improved and so on

Examples Of Tactics

Defining tactics is somewhat easier because they represent the means you use to achieve your strategy.

You can consider them as single battles.

I’ve tested some tactics over the years and they definitely work.

You may have studied them in Marketing because they are quite popular.

Tactics are the ways to reach your objectives.

Together with processes, they counteract the natural chaos of the world.

Your plans crash as soon as reality hits and you need to have solid systems (operations) in place.

You can say tactics are the single steps of your operations and the most low-level implementation of things.

Flanking

Attacking your competitors in their weak spots.

If a website is weak in a given topic, this is where you attack. If they have some products that aren’t that good, you can offer better products.

You don’t focus on what they do well but where they lack.

From there, you keep building authority on that specific topic/niche until you become big enough.

It would be quite stupid to compete against goliaths like Semrush and Ahrefs or even HubSpot…

but if you find the weak spots, all problems will disappear.

For example, I don’t need to compete against them because I have my very specific niche.

SEO would cost me a lot and outranking such goliaths is a real challenge.

By focusing on what they don’t do well (data cough cough), I can easily distribute my content via social and email instead.

Bypassing

What best describes Seotistics is bypassing. You don’t compete at all, you find your own space and go for it.

If everyone in Web Analytics talks about tracking and GA4, you pick a different focus.

If in SEO everyone talks about fluff, you do the opposite and show good case studies.

This can take many forms:

👉 Build a new mix, e.g. SEO and Analytics, SEO and CRO
👉 Explain obscure concepts in a different way

Moving content from one place to another is often referred to as Content Arbitrage.

It’s a great idea for “easier” branding and positioning.

This is what Seotistics also does, as the (mainstream) Web Analytics industry follows different rules:

👉 mostly interested in tech over insights
👉 weak domain knowledge
👉 extreme focus on Google tools

Guerrilla

This tactic, or well, mindset, is all about being aggressive in original ways, while spending as little as possible.

Yeah, the term comes from guerrilla warfare, so sudden and quick attacks over time.

It’s all based on the shock value of what you do and this can take the form of an aggressive ads campaign.

You see it all the time and you don’t notice it.

With websites, guerrilla marketing can involve using multiple channels to create shock value and erode your competitors.

E.g. TikTok ads with crazy videos + aggressive PPC campaigns on competitor terms

SEO doesn’t work well with Guerrilla as you need to be quick… and it’s the opposite of it lol.

Conservation of one own’s strength; destruction of enemy’s strength.

Yu Chi Chan (Guerrilla Warfare)

A Business Example

Let’s take an Ecommerce website selling technical books.

Strategy: well this needs more space because we defined it as a kernel of 3 components.

Diagnosis: competitors are eating their margins because they have a wider offer and more reputation.


Guiding policy: either increase your reputation or niche down.


Coherent actions: create content on technical books on Instagram and your website. Partner up with micro influencers to get more visible to your desired audience.

Operations: Content Planning/Management. For example, they store their content data in Airtable and prepare some flows to update the content and notify their editors.

Tactics: Bypassing. Avoiding competition and going for niche topics that don’t get enough attention, e.g. create content around books that are great alternatives to mainstream ones.
Flanking. Attack the weaker niches.

As you have noticed, tactics can sometimes be confused with coherent actions.

Tactics are more granular and situational… coherent actions tend to be higher level.

Does it really matter in practice?

No, because all of these definitions can change in 100 years or become outdated. Do what works for you.

How Does Data Fit?

You don’t need data in 100% of the cases but… data is your best ally under uncertainty.

Websites are complex entities and you need to check your GA4/GSC to see if you can spot meaningful patterns.

A look at web data can help you identify challenges (e.g. core products not selling) and even formulate policies.

All of this with the caveat that your insights should lead to action.

The best advice is to start with questions and objectives rather than blindly exploring your data.

Also check my related article on my Business-Oriented Analytics Framework.

So, Web Analytics can tie to our strategy framework like this:

To detect problems, you need to find them out via audits and by exploring the data. Speaking of which, go check my article on the 8-step Content Auditing Framework.

Operations and Tactics naturally involve a heavy use of data via products or reports and automation.

KPIs, OKRs and other management buzzwords fall under the strategy to measure if your guiding policy and coherent actions make sense, as well as what comes next.

But first, you need to diagnose problems and define what to do!

Web Analytics Strategy? ❌

Using Web Analytics to support your Business Strategy? ✅

The actions and the operations do NOT stem from data but from your business/industry knowledge.

Can you have a Web Analytics Strategy? Yes, especially if you want to involve tracking.

You can create a strategy for anything.

This article is focused on showing you the business POV because that’s what Web Analytics often misses.

Data: Opinions Or Facts?

Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.
​
Edwards Deming

As Cassie Kozyrkov, a prominent figure in the world of Decision Science, correctly points out, the opposite is also true.

It makes sense if you consider what I told you early on. Even with data, you may just have an opinion.

A common misconception is that data is objective and can’t fail because “data says so” or “Math is Math!”.

This is super common when using Semrush/Ahrefs data as the ultimate truth or even Search Console data, especially if sampled.

This part is crucial to understand that showing some data doesn’t make you better.

Make It Actionable

The entire point of this article is to teach you how to become more strategic which means bringing results, in the end.

This is why most of Seotistics is about processes… which is what you hardly read in Web Analytics and Marketing.

Every insight should be tied to an action, otherwise your stakeholders won’t care.

The final goal of data is to make decisions that make you money, not to be cool.

This simple fact will change your career… and you will see why most of the mainstream content is fluff.

Say, you just did a content audit and found the following:

  • 20% of the content brings close to 0 traffic
  • CTAs don’t get clicked
  • the best cluster is about mattresses
  • Social media posts don’t get likes

Without overthinking it, you need to see how these insights lead to action.

In this case, it’s clear that the content can be improved and also what’s being done on social media.

To give proper advice, you need some experience with the industry/domain.

How can you give advice on content if you have never worked with it?

This is referred to as domain knowledge, so knowing your sh*t.

In this case, you could recommend your client to:

  • Prune or improve some pages
  • Revamp the CTAs (or remove some)
  • Double down on that cluster
  • Reconsider their social media methods

Simple, right?

Yes because it should be simple both for you and your client. If you overcomplicate the process you’ll end up with more problems than before.

If you want to learn more about this topic, I’ve prepared an Analytics for SEO course that covers both theory and practice:

Unlock Powerful Insights Now!

Preparing Deliverables

All of this ties back to what you actually do and what will be done.

I recommend creating plans and deliverables because writing helps put things into context.

So your strategy is NOT a plan but it can be (partially) expressed in documents.

There is no universal way of proceeding but people want deliverables and documents to consult.

Many will tell you “a strategy is not a plan!”.

That’s cool dude but you need to express your thoughts in some tangible format for others to consume.

Graydot has an excellent guide on SEO Roadmaps and another one on using Airtable but for keywords.

Now apply the same on other channels and that’s it.

You don’t need a lot of complexity, you just need something complete, understandable and effective.

Elaborating Good Guiding Policies

We have got the ideas, now you should be ready or willing to change your approach.

Instead of bundling a list of tasks, you can think in terms of challenges and policies + actions to tackle them.

Strategy is nothing else but a wrapper that brings order.

Let’s be real, is losing traffic a problem for many websites? Your final goal is money, not traffic.

Many owners hit by the HCU complain about Google… but what if they had the strategic acumen to prepare a Plan B?

Then, they could have prepared something like this:

Content Distribution & Repurposing is an example of diversification which is always a great policy.

The realest issues aren’t always in plain sight and you need to investigate and ask WHY a lot of times.

A real strategy would start from finding challenges, not setting goals.

  • Content production is slow
  • No distribution/repurposing happens
  • Weak monetization model

This is true for many publishers and you should identify challenges like that ASAP. Otherwise, you will prepare a list of tasks that will achieve nothing.

The Role Of Business

I mentioned business and need to provide more context and examples.

Websites fall under different buckets as you already know:

  • Content websites
  • SaaS
  • E-commerce
  • any other model you can think of
  • B2C vs B2B

You can classify websites in many different models but the important is that you acknowledge their key differences.

Yes, the ideas and the data are the same but in practice, it’s like working on completely different things.

A content website will prioritize the quality and distribution of the content since its business model relies on them.

An E-commerce makes money via sales, they don’t have subscriptions or excellent content to monetize. Sure, you can create content for your users but it’s not how you make money.

B2B SaaS poses different challenges, including market fit and competing in one of the hardest markets ever created.

Do you care about sales for a publisher? Sales of what? And leads?

As you see, KPIs change across website models and so do their levers.

My Personal Experience

My relationship with strategy is strange in the sense that I don’t always plan stuff.

Reading more books on the topic shaped my thoughts and helped me figure out how to be more practical.

My favorite example is Seotistics, where I consistently think in terms of differentiation, positioning and bypassing.

This is more or less like I thought of it:

ProblemSolution
Strong competitorsFlanking and/or Bypassing. Avoid competing at all or pick topics where you can win.
Hard to use SEO as a channel. Don’t. Use email + social.
Web Analytics services/ideas are saturated.
GMT/GA4 are widely explored. 		Once again, not an issue.

Create a unique combo of Web Analytics & Business, mix Content and Strategy.

Distribution & Repurposing are quite simple:

My favorite piece of advice is the firm belief that anyone is different and should see themselves as unique.

The moment you see yourself as in competition or “inferior”, you have already lost the game.

Your Channels Interact

Silos are evil and they tend to destroy synergies.

Yes because marketing channels interact with each other, they don’t live in a vacuum.

I think of channels as divided into 2 groups: inbound and outbound, pull vs push.

Combining channels of different types creates complementary effects:

  • Pulling with SEO, converting with email

Same-type channels lead to reinforcing effects:

  • SEO + (organic) Social media to attract even more customers

The picture below shows some other examples:

A “New” Perspective On Strategy

After this article, you should have reconsidered many of the mainstream (and wrong) takes on strategy.

This is a selection of my favorites:

  • Oppose your strongest point to the enemy’s weakest
  • There is no difference between offense and defense
  • Planning is projecting your thoughts in advance
  • When you lose the initiative, you are passive and can lose
  • When there is strength, there is weakness. When there is weakness, there is strength.

All of this stuff comes from the miscellaneous sources I have listed at the end of the article.

Learning Resources

This could be a separate article because there is a LOT to read.

Many resources I will list below aren’t necessarily related to business.

Considering that business books took concepts from military science, you may want to think twice if you only read cringe business books.

My friend Sara Taher is working on an SEO course on strategy, link below:

Enroll now

In fact, the best teachings come from unusual reads.

I will tell you what are my recommendations based on what I read and my personal background:

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